Public Welfare Service 


Bulletin No. 4 


iBPARY 0! 
(Sixth Edition) THE LIBRAR 
1927 5 ee 


miVERSITY OF 
UNIVERSH 
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THE TELEPHONE 





Its History and Methods of Operation 


For Use of School Students, English and 
Current Topics Classes, and Debating Clubs 


Issued by 


ILLINOIS COMMITTEE on PUBLIC UTILITY INFORMATION 
79 West Monroe Street . - A - Chicago, Illinois 


(Additional copies will be furnished on request) 


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Outstanding Facts About the Telephone 


First Speech by Telephone: 


The first sentence was heard over the telephone 
in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell, an American, 
inventor of the telephone. 

In 1876: 

There were two telephones and less than 100 
feet of telephone wire. A Boston attic was the 
telephone workshop and served as a laboratory. 
In 1927: 

There were 18,000,000 telephones in the United 
States, which was about 6/10 of all the telephones 
in the world. 

There were more than 39,000 separate telephone 
systems in the United States. 

Operating companies gave employment to 380,- 
000 persons, who with their families dependent 
upon their earnings for support, aggregated over 
1,000,000 persons. 

Four thousand persons were regularly em- 
ployed in development and research work. 

There were in excess of twenty-five billion 
conversations over the lines in 1926, or an aver- 
age of 210 completed calls for every man, woman 
and child in the country. 


In Illinois: 
There were more than 35,000 telephone em- 
ployees in 1926. 


More than 1,600,000 telephones were in service, 
compared with four in 1877 and 221,000 in 1902. 


In addition to girls employed by the telephone 
companies, there are about 15,000 employed as 
private branch exchange operators. 


Telephone manufacturing companies in this 
state have more than 30,000 employees and send 
their products to all parts of the world. 


There are 1,189 central offices. 


Small Cost of the Telephone: 
The fact that through efficiency, economy and 


TELEPHONE DEVELOPMENT 
IN UNITED STATES AND EUROPE 


TELEPHONES PER 100 POPULATION 


3 
$ 
2 
g 
8 
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8 
: 





capable management it has been possible to sup- 
ply telephone service at a small cost has been 
the greatest factor in bringing about universal 
use of the telephone. Like other utility services, 
the cost has been so low as to bring it within 
reach of the pocketbook of the most modest in- 
come, and this has resulted in the tremendous 
development of the service to the public. The 
part of the average family’s income spent for the 
telephone is herewith shown as compared with 
other items of expenditure. 


Per Per 

Cent of Cent of 

Family Family 

Item Income Item Income 
Food ....._._—_ 268 -STREE] €AR see 
Rent, fuel —..__._._22.9. GAS “Se 
Clothing —__.____15.3 TELEPHONE __ 038 
Insurance —....__. 4.4 *Miscellaneous ____25.3 


ELECTRICITY — 0,7 Total 100% 


*Miscellaneous includes vacation, entertainment, gifts 
and savings. ; 








How Companies Spend Revenues: 


It costs great sums of money to give the United 
States its wonderful telephone service. The em- 
ployes must be paid good wages, and tremen- 
dous amounts go for wire, cable, instruments, 
switchboards, and countless other articles, as well 
as for buildings. Unless investors purchase se- 
curities and provide an unbroken flow of money 
into the industry, development would cease. 


An average dollar received from a subscriber 
for telephone service is spent about as follows: 
Wages, 49.7 cents; materials and supplies, 16.9 
cents; dividends to stockholders, 9.6 cents; inter- 
est on bonds and other borrowed money, 7.1 
cents ; taxes, 6.1 cents; surplus to meet emergen- 
cies such as destruction of equipment by storm or 
fire, 4 cents; advertising, insurance, accidents, 
power, etc., 2:8 cents; printing, 1.6 cents; mainte- 
nance of public stations, 1.2 cents; rent, 1 cent. 


TELEPHONE CONVERSATIONS PER CAPITA 
Year 1925 

© 10 20 30 40 50 60 -70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 160 190 
UNITED STATES : 
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SWEDEN Fa SRSA 
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NETHERLANDS 


AUSTRALIA 


© 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 M10 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 
Telephone conversations per capita 


THE TELEPHONE 


Introductory: . 


When you use your telephone and casually dis- 
cuss matters great or small with some unseen 
person perhaps only a few doors away from you 
—perhaps a hundred or even a thousand miles 
away—you naturally give little thought to the 
unseen forces, the wondrous inventions, the years 
of painstaking development, or the great organi- 
zations of people, material and minds that have 
made this act of yours possible. 

Telephoning has become such an every-day or 
even every-hour occurrence in the modern rush 
of daily existence that it has become as ordinary 
and natural a thing for us to do as sitting down 
to our dinners, or glancing through our daily 
newspaper. 


Development of This Magic 
Method of Communication: 


Yet, behind this simple little act of calling by 
telephone and holding converse with some dis- 
tant person, there is the story of a marvel so 
great as almost to put to shame the wonder of 
Aladdin’s Lamp or other entrancing tales of the 
Arabian Nights. 

Beginning 51 years ago, the record and the de- 
velopment of the telephone has been so wonder- 
ful, so vital in the affairs of man, that it has ac- 
tually changed the course of human history and 
has played: no small part in the civilization of 
mankind. | 

It is one of the wonders of the modern world, 
and no less wonderful simply because it has, by 
the rapidity of its development, become seeming- 
ly. so commonplace. 

Throughout the ages the advancement of civ- 
ilization has been vitally dependent upon progress 
in four great human needs; transportation, power, 
heat and communication, the four of almost equal 
value in the affairs of the world. In the field of 
communication, the telephone represents one of 
the great strides forward in human history. 


Methods of Communication 


of the Ancients: 


A study of the advancement of the art of com- 
munication throughout history is interesting. Pre- 
historic man, so far as we know, depended solely 


upon “word of mouth,” delivered personally or 
perhaps by messenger. So did even the more civ- 
ilized ancients of Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria and 
other great empires of the dawn of civilization, 
until, as knowledge increased, messages were 
scratched in rude hieroglyphics upon wax or even 
clay tablets; later, upon papyrus and then upon 
parchment; but delivery was always dependent 
upon the hands of a messenger. 

In the Middle Ages the art of writing was de- 
veloped; later, Gutenberg invented printing, but 
it is significant of the extraordinary progress of 
our own times, that, through all the centuries of 
the known history of the world, it was not until 
during the last century that mankind discovered 
a dependable way of really rapid communication 
between distant points. 

The ancient Aztecs and perhaps other races 
had their rude heliographs; the American Indian 
used his smoke signal; the African savage his 
tom-tom code; but all such methods were simply 
makeshifts, for emergencies, and not available for 
individual communication. 

The celebrated “Pony Express” and other 
postal systems of the olden days here and in 
other countries were slow, limited to the speed 
of a horse or dependent upon wind, tide and 
wave. No instantaneous or rapid system of wide- 
-pread communication was discovered, through 
all history, until less than 100 years ago. 


The Telegraph and Telephone: 


In 1752 Benjamin Franklin flew his famous kite 
and captured a spark of lightning, but it was not 
until 1838 that Professor Morse demonstrated 
the availability of electrical energy for the com- 
munication of thought, by the invention of the 
electric telegraph. 

This was the first great step toward instantan- 
eous universal communication; but even the tele- 
graph, wonderful as it is, and filling, as it does, 
its own place in the modern system of rapid com- 
munication between distant points, was not and 
is not a system of personal, individual communi- 
cation, by which one man may actually speak to 
or listen to another over intervening space great 
or small. 

Then, in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented 
the electric telephone. Every school boy has heard 





How Inventive Genius has Improved the Telephone 





the story of this wonderful discovery—for it was 
as much the discovery of a principle in the com- 
bination of electricity, sound waves and acoustics 
as an invention—and has heard how, after years 
of exasperating, disheartening experiments the 
young professor of a “School of Vocal Physiol- 
ogy” finally evolved a curious instrument that 
one day in March, 1876, carried over the wire the 
words: “Mr. Watson, come here; I want you,” 
and the telephone was a reality. 


The Story of Alexander Bell: 


The story of the electric telephone reads like a 
romance and is replete with curious and aston- 
ishing happenings. 

Enthusiastically continuing work upon his de- 
vice, the young inventor, with the help of his 
loyal assistant, Thomas A. Watson, produced a 
telephone for exhibition at the Philadelphia Cen- 
tennial Exposition. Even then, except for the 
providential appearance of the Emperor of Brazil, 
who happened to take interest in it, the great in- 
vention would probably have passed back into 
obscurity. Through Dom Pedro’s influence, scien- 
tific men took notice of the Bell telephone, and it 
was awarded a “Certificate of Merit.” 

Even after that, however, for some time it was 
looked upon as an impractical, scientific toy, and 
only after Bell and his associates had passed 
through many trials was the true value of the 
telephone recognized. 
































The first telephones were leased in pairs. 
not inter-communication. 
(Fig. 1) connected five Boston banks. 


The First Telephone System: 


The first sustained conversation over the tele- 
phone was held in October, 1876, between Boston 
and Cambridge, when a telegraph line, with a 
telephone attached to each end, was used for the 
purpose for three hours. 


During the spring of 1877, Bell and Watson 
spent most of their time giving demonstrations 
in the nature of lectures on the telephone in New 
England towns and in New York City. These 
helped to stir public interest in the new device 
and they solved a temporary money problem 
for the inventor. 


It was not until May, 1877, however, that any 
man had the temerity actually to pay for the use 
of a telephone, and then a man in a Massachu- 
setts town leased two telephones for twenty dol- 
lars—the first money ever paid for a telephone. 


At first telephones were leased in pairs and 
these permitted communication only between a 
man’s office and his home, for example. Then a 
crude switchboard was made to interconnect tele- 
phones in five Boston banks. Crude though it 
was, this simple switching machine was suffi- 
ciently satisfactory to prove that a service of in- 
terconnection could be given on a commercial 
basis. A switchboard for this purpose was in- 
stalled at New Haven, Conn., in 1878. This con- 
nected eight subscribers’ lines. 

Other switchboards were soon in service in 


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They provided communication between their users, but 
This came only with the development of switchboards, the first of which 
The first commercial switchboard (Fig. 2) was installed in 
New Haven, Conn., in January, 1878, and connected 8 lines. 
were designed, like the Law Board (Fig. 3) and the Pyramid Type (Fig 4). 


Many curious types of switchboard 
The first Universal - 


board (Fig. 5), the forerunner of the modern manually operated switchboard, appeared in 1879. 





Many central offices like the New York 
City exchange of 1879, shown above, had boy 
operators. Confusion reigned as_ they 
shouted at each other and at subscribers— 
a striking contrast with— 


The scene presented in the operating room 
of a modern central office, where the speech 
highways of a nation join but quiet reigns 
as the low-voiced operators carry on their 
important work. 


Bridgeport, Conn., New York, Philadelphia and 
Chicago. 

So began the evolution of the switchboard, the 
heart of the system, and the gradual growth of 
the telephone frém a mere idea into a great in- 
strumentality which now provides universal 
service—permitting millions of Americans to talk 
to each other and to persons in Canada, Cuba, 
Mexico, England, Scotland and Wales, all of 
which are now connected by telephone. 


What Makes the Telephone Talk: 


“What makes the telephone talk?” is a question 
frequently asked. Well, of course, the telephone 
doesn’t talk at all—nor does it even actually carry 
sound along the wires. 

The transmitting telephone (Fig. A) at one end 
of the line simply takes the sound and converts it 
into certain electrical manifestations that are car- 
ried along the wire to the receiving telephone 
(Fig. B), which converts them back into sound 
again. (See Fig. C.) 


How It Transmits Sounds: 


Sounds of all kinds, including the human voice, 
consist of vibrations or sound waves (Fig. C-1). 
When you speak into the trans- 
mitter of a telephone the sound 
waves of your voice cause a 
thin metal diaphragm (Fig. 
A-1, Fig. C-2) to vibrate, each 
different sound causing differ- 
ent kinds of vibrations. Close 
against this diaphragm are 
small carbon granules (Fig. 
A-2, Fig. C-3) through which there is passing an 
electrical current. The vibrations of the dia- 
phragm cause the amount of electrical current 
passing through the carbon granules to vary, each 
vibration of the voice sending an electrical im- 
pulse along the wires (Fig. C-4) to the telephone 
receiver (Fig. B). 

In the telephone receiver the wires are wound 
in coils (Fig. B-2) around a magnet (Fig. C-5) 
and as the electrical 
current in the coils va- 
ries, the strength of 
the magnet varies. 
This magnet is close 
to an iron diaphragm 
(Fig. B-1, Fig. C-6) 
and as the magnet’s 
strength varies, its 








pull on this diaphragm varies, causing the dia- 
phragm to vibrate, and to set up sound waves 
(Fig. C-7) which are heard in the ear of the per- 
son who is listening. 

Thus, you see, the sound of your voice is trans- 
formed into thousands of electrical impulses (or 
variations in strength of electrical current), and 
these electrical impulses are, in turn, changed 
into sound waves which are heard by the person 
to whom you are talking. 

Only a very weak electrical current is used on 
a telephone line for talking, but a slightly strong- 
er, though harmless, current is used for ringing 
the telephone bells. Neither current is strong 
enough to be dangerous—the talking current 
could not be felt even if the telephone were not 
well insulated, as it is. 

From the above description it is evident that, 
if the numberless variations of sound which ac- 
company human speech are to be transmitted 
accurately by telephone, not only must the ap- 
paratus, but the line wires, or circuit, must be 
absolutely free from “grounds” or “leaks,” or 
other conditions which might interfere with its 
use. 

The fact that today the service is so universally 
satisfactory as to transmission; that not only 
can one hear what is said but immediately recog- 
nize who is speaking by the quality of the voice; 
this really wonderful but commonplace result is 
the best evidence of the extent to which the art 
of telephony has now been perfected and is ap- 
plied in practice in the service of the public. A 
very slight defect will prevent successful trans- 
mission of speech, but of the millions of con- 
versations attempted by telephone every day, the 
number so prevented is infinitesimally small. 


The Central Office or 
Telephone Exchange: 


The invention of the telephone instrument 
alone, or even the discovery of the principle of 
electrical telephony, would not have made the 
telephone exchange possible without the develop- 
ment, also, of some form of central station switch- 
board, where any one telephone in the system 
could be connected with any other telephone in 
the system. 

The development of the telephone switchboard 
was a task by itself, but so well have the tele- 
phone engineers and designers performed their 
work during the past 50 years that the switch- 


How You “Talk” Through the Telephone 





FIG. A MODERN TRANSMITTER. 1—dis- 
phragm, 2—carbon granules, 3—electric contacts. 

FIG. B MODERN RECEIVER. I1—diaphragm 
2—coils. 

FIG. C A SIMPLE TELEPHONE CIRCUIY. 
1—sound waves of speech, 2—metal diaphragm, 
3—carbon granules, 4—wires, 5—magnet, 6— 
iron diaphragm, 7—sound waves which are heard. 


board of today is a marvel of mechanical and 
electrical ingenuity, and of efficiency and de- 
pendability. 


What One Sees at the Central Office: 


There are three general types of telephone 
switching. The first, known as the “magneto” 
or “local battery” system, is about the only sys- 
tem practicable for the small town or rural sys- 
tem. The batteries giving current for talking are 
contained in the telephone instrument, and the 
current for signaling the central station operator 
is generated by turning a crank on the telephone, 
which operates a hand generator inside the instru- 
ment. ‘This is the simplest form of telephony, 
and the most practical, efficient and dependable 
type for the smaller telephone exchange. The 
magneto system is commonly used for all rural 
telephone lines. 

The second system, the most generally used at 
the present time for large telephone exchanges, is 
known as the “common battery” type, current 
both for talking and ringing being furnished by 
batteries or generators in the central office. In 
this system the telephone user simply removes 
the receiver from its hook on the telephone, this 
action signaling the operator by lighting a small 
lamp on the switchboard, or by some similar 
method. 

For large exchanges, such as are in the great 
cities, what is known as a “multiple” switchboard 
must be used. This is a common battery switch- 
board so constructed that any operator at the 
board can make a connection between a patron 
calling and any other telephone connected with 
the board. This is arranged by repeating or “mul- 
tiplying” within reach of each operator along the 
switchboard, the connecting “jacks” or terminals 





Aerial Cable Line. Open Wire Lines. 
In telephone cables the Open wire telephone 


wires, each insulated with 
wrapping of paper, are en- 
closed in a lead-antimony 
sheath. Aerial cables are 
supported by rings placed 
at intervals along a sus- 
pension strand made up of 
steel wires, which is at- 
tached to each pole by 
means of a clamp and bolt. 

Loading coils in cases as 
illustrated in the above pic- 
ture are often installed to 
increase the range and 
clarity of speech transmis- 
sion, 


lines may be distinguished 
from aerial cable lines by 
the presence of the familiar 
crossarms. The standard 
crossarm provides space 
for ten insulator pins, each 
carrying a glass insulator 
to which a telephone wire 
is attached for support. 

The New York-Chicago 
cable has the capacity of 
ten such heavily laden 
open wire lines. In addi- 
tion, it is less liable to 
damage by storms than 
open wire lines. 


for every telephone. It is a very complicated and 
expensive system to install, costing sometimes 
four to five times the price of the switchboard 
without the multiple feature, per line connected. 


In very large cities the telephone company will 
operate a number of telephone central offices, 
each of which will be designated by a certain 
name or “prefix,” such as “Main,” “Superior,” 
and so on. Subscribers connected to one central 
office must be “trunked” over to the other cen- 
tral office when they call for a subscriber con- 
nected there. 


The ‘tAutomatic” or 
**Dial’’ System: 

In a number of places there is coming into use 
the dial or “automatic” system of telephony, in 
which the switching between telephones is done 
by automatic machinery, instead of manually 
(physically) by telephone operators. Another 
system, combining certain features of both auto- 
matic and manual telephone exchanges, known 
as the “semi-automatic” type of exchange, is in 
use in some places. 

In any manual telephone system the cost, or 
investment, in the central office apparatus is 
very high, in many cases amounting to as much 
as an average of $250 for each telephone in ser- 
vice at the exchange. It is, of course, higher with 
the mechanical system. 

The dial system central office apparatus also re- 
quires constant watching and repair, as it is very 
intricate and complicated, having literally thou- 
sands and thousands of connected wires with in- 
numerable electrical contacts which must con- 
stantly be kept in fine adjustment. Such intricate 
apparatus is naturally subject to difficulties from 
any extreme heat, cold, moisture, etc., and ex- 
pert switchboard men must watch and work upon 
it constantly to keep it in condition for giving effi- 
cient telephone service. 


The Outside Plant: 


Besides the expensive, intricate and delicately 
adjusted central station equipment, with the op- 
erators constantly on duty, the whole of the 24 
hours, to give service to the public; and besides 
the telephone instruments in the homes or busi- 
ness places of the subscribers; the telephone com- 
pany must have and maintain an adequate system 
of poles, wires, cables, and so forth, on or under 
the streets of the city, by means of which it can 
reach its subscribers to connect their telephones 
with the central office switchboard. 

The telephone exchange is peculiar in itself, 
and differs from its electrical cousin, the electric 
light and power plant, and from such other utility 
companies as the gas and water supplying con- 
cerns, in this way: 

The electric light company can supply any 
number of subscribers with current for electric 
lighting or power, from one pair of wires, or 
circuit, and the water and gas companies can 


supply their own commodities to any number of 
customers from the same “mains.” But the tele- 
phone company must furnish a separate line or 
circuit for each subscriber—excepting, of course, 
those on “party lines,” for which service the rate 
is cheaper. This necessitates a correspondingly 
high investment per subscriber, in the telephone 
exchange. 


How Wires and Cables Are 
Laid or Strung: 


The wires from the telephone central office to 
the various subscribers’ telephones usually leave 
the central office in cables, either in the air or 
underground. From the office they may be car- 
ried considerable distances underground, or in 
aerial cables, depending upon the size of the ex- 
change, and the class of construction. 

The wires, when in the cables, are hardly big- 
ger than a large thread, and are made of copper. 
Each wire is wrapped around with perfectly dry 
paper, this paper and such small amount of dry 
air as is included in the cable when it is covered, 
insulating the wires from each other. 

The covering of the cable is a sheath of lead, 
mixed with a little tin or other alloy to give it 
tensile strength. 

Such cables will contain from 50 up to 2,400 
wires, and are therefore known as “25 pair,” “1,200 
pair” cables, and so on. 

The cable sheaths must be kept water tight. 
Should even a drop of water get into the cables 
it will destroy the insulation, and “cross talk” 
will result in the telephones served by the wetted 
wires, or else the telephone will be “dead” alto- 
gether. 

Sometimes constant swaying of aerial cables or 
rubbing against a tree limb or other surface, 
causes the sheath to crystallize; then tiny cracks 
or holes appear and a hard, driving rain wets the 
wires inside and causes telephone “trouble.” 

That part of the cable must then be “boiled 
out” in paraffin, which extracts all moisture and 
a new section of lead sheath, or a water tight 
patch, must be put on. 


Wiring System Very Delicate: 


Underground cables are laid in conduits, which 
are pipes made of baked clay or other material 
with a varying number of “ducts,” laid in trenches 
dug under the streets, and then covered. 

The conduit ducts end in “manholes” at appro- 
priate intervals; the manholes are sufficiently 
large for workmen to enter them and stand erect; 
they can be identified on the streets by the round, 
iron covers lying flush with the surface of the 
street. The cables are drawn into the ducts, from 
the manholes, after the conduits are laid. 

Sooner or later, though, the wires must be 
brought out of the cables and be carried along 
the poles, to be distributed to the different tele- 
phones. The cables end in “terminals” located in 
a round metal can or a wooden box with a door, 


which is placed on the pole, the underground 
cable being brought up the pole to the terminal. 


The Terminals: 


In these terminals larger copper wires are con- 
nected with the pairs from the cables, and these 
wires run along the poles for such distance as is 
necessary, to the pole nearest the house where the 
telephone is located. 

Then a pair of wires, called the “drop wires,” 
is run from the pole to the house, and is termi- 
nated on the outside of the house, connecting 
there with a pair of “inside” wires which enter 
the house and are connected with the telephone. 

The kind and size of the poles used depends 
upon the class of construction, and upon the 
number of wires or the size of the cables to be 
carried. White cedar poles, cut in the forests of 
Michigan or other northern states, are used in 
many city exchanges; others use cypress or other 
native timber, sometimes protected against de- 
cay by creosote or other preservative. The cross 
arms are often of Washington fir; the wooden 
pins, upon which the glass insulators are screwed, 
of locust. 

Pole lines are guyed by heavy guy strand as 
protection against heavy winds, sleet and so on. 
Similar strand is stretched from pole to pole 
when aerial cable is used and the cable is hung 
from this “messenger” strand which takes the 
strain off the soft lead sheath of the cable. 


Cables: 


The longest enclosed channel of telephone com- 
munication in the world is the New York-Chi- 
cago cable which was completed and put into 
service in 1925. It took seven years to complete 
the job and it cost $25,000,000. This cable is 
practically immune from storm damage and it 
not only makes service between New York and 
Chicago more dependable but it also improves 
and makes more dependable the service between 
points lying along and adjacent to the route of 
the cable. 

Facilities are provided for 250 telephone cir- 
cuits, and more than 500 telegraph messages can 
be sent simultaneously with the telephone mes- 
sages. To provide for the same number of tele- 
phone and telegraph messages by open wire con- 
struction would require about ten telephone pole 
lines each heavily loaded with wires. Except 
for 144 miles of underground construction 
through large cities, the cable is strung on short, 
strong poles. Its total length is 861 miles. 


The Manhole, 
where underground 
cables are repaired 





The cable connects with the entire long dis- 
tance system including cables previously con- 
structed, such as New York-Boston, New York- 
Washington, etc. In Chicago it connects with the 
Chicago-Milwaukee cable and the Chicago-St. 
Louis cable, the latter being completed in 1926. 

The Chicago-St. Louis cable is a modern speech 
highway running through Illinois by way of 
Joliet, Peoria and Springfield. 


Repeaters: 


These cables are the result of many years of 
experimentation and research. Many problems 
had to be solved. Many difficulties had to be 
surmounted. One of these is the loss of energy 
in the electric current as it travels over long dis- 
tances. This difficulty was met by connecting 
loading coils with the wires at intervals of ap- 
proximately 6,000 feet and by installing repeater 
apparatus at intervals of from 50 to 100 miles. 
The repeater apparatus, an essential element of 
which is the audion or vacuum tube, is installed 
in repeater station buildings of durable fire-proof 
construction. There are seventeen of these build- 
ings along the line from New York to Chicago. 

Such, in briefi—and very briefly—is the prin- 
cipal outside plant of the telephone exchange. 
Divided, as to cost, by the number of telephones 
it serves, the outside construction may cost as 
high as an average of $100 to $200 for each tele- 
phone in the exchange, depending upon the size 
of the town, the character of the construction, 
and so on. 


Manufacture: 


The world’s largest plant for manufacturing 
telephones, switchboards, cable, and other tele- 
phone equipment is in Illinois—in a suburb of 
Chicago. Materials from the whole world—from 
coal to platinum—are used in this factory where 
more than 26,000 persons are employed and from 
whence telephone equipment is shipped to places 
wherever telephones are used. 


The Management of the 
Telephone Company: 


The management of the telephone company 
has a triple responsibility: to the public, to fur- 


The United States with only 
5% of the world’s Area 
and 6% of the 
world's Population 


has 61 % of the world’s 
Telephones 


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nish good, dependable telephone service; to the 
employes, to pay them adequately for their ser- 
vice and to deal with them justly; to the investors 
who furnish the money to build the lines and give 
the public service, to produce for them a reason- 
able and fair payment in the form of interest on 
their investment. 

The rates the telephone company may charge 
for its service are under the regulation of public 
authority. 


How Management Is Divided: 


The management of the business naturally di- 
vides itself into three distinct operating heads: 

Commercial, which refers to the making of 
contracts with patrons, billing and collecting of 
the. service accounts, advertising, soliciting and 
in general the “business end” of the business. 

Plant, which refers to the construction and up- 
keep of the property. 

Traffic, which refers to the employment, train- 
ing and supervision of the operators and operat- 
ing forces. 

Besides these, there usually is an Account- 
ing Department, keeping the company’s books. 
If the company has an annual income of as much 
as $50,000 it is required to make a sworn state- 
ment of its business to the Interstate Commerce 
Commission. In Illinois all companies—both 
large and small—must make annual reports to the 
Illinois Commerce Commission and keep their 
books as that body orders. Most states have 
similar requirements. 


The Personnel: 


To keep pace with the remarkable telephone 
growth, it is necessary constantly to increase the 
operating forces as well as the amount of equip- 
ment. The personnel of the telephone company 
must be a highly trained, responsible and efficient 
group for the operation and maintenance of the 
equipment. Employees must be cool-headed and 
able to act in any emergency. 

In the larger cities schools are operated by the 
modern telephone company: one for the training 
of traffic employees or operators, and the other 
for the. maintenance men and repairmen. The 
operators’ training school takes the recruit and 
teaches her the fundamentals of telephone opera- 
tion, after which she develops into a finished op- 
erator well able to care for the work of her posi- 
tion. 

The repairman, although trained in the plant 
school, is never finished with his studies. New 
circuits and new equipment are constantly being 
added to the telephone plant, and the repairman 
must keep pace in the knowledge of this intricate 
equipment. He quickly learns that “Service” is 
the first consideration; the telephone must always 
be kept working. 

Upon the telephone and its employes rests an 
important part of the life of the community. 


DISTRIBUTION OF THE WORLD'S TELEPHONES 
—= January 1, 1926 =— 


GERMANY 


GREAT BRITAIN 
FRANCE 


ALL OTHER 
EUROPEAN 
COUNTRIES UNITED STATES 
<=— 61% 


ALL OTHER 
COUNTRIES 
12% 





Millions of Telephones Now: 


So great was the need for just such a method 
of communication, that in 51 years of its life 
there are more than 18,000,000 telephones in use 
in the United States. How the number of tele- 
phones in the United States compares with those 
of other countries—indicating the tremendous de- 
velopment of American communication methods 
—is illustrated by the chart on page 9. 

There are now more telephones in Illinois than 
are to be found on the continents of Asia, Africa 
and South America, with New Zealand thrown in 
for good measure. Chicago, alone, can account 
for more telephones than can Italy and France 
combined. 

Although there are almost 600 telephone com- 
panies in Illinois, they are all so inter-connected 
that any person, whether he lives on a farm or in 
the heart of a big city, has available instant com- 
munication with the outside world. This is not 
limited to Illinois but includes all of the United 
States, Canada and Cuba and principal cities of 
Mexico. 

These Illinois companies are owned by more 
than 80,000 securities holders, most of whom 
are residents of the communities where the com- 
panies give service. 


The Telephone and the Radio: 


The uses of the telephone and radio in the 
communications field are best told by John J. 
Carty, one of the world’s foremost engineers. 
Here is a quotation from a statement by Mr. 
Carty: 

“The characteristics of radio messages causing 
them to spread out over large areas, enabling 
the radio telephone to be of inestimable service 
in certain fields, is one of the factors which stand 
in the way of its general use as a substitute for 
wires. Scientists long ago demonstrated that 
wires are nothing more nor less than pathways 
for guiding or directing the electrical waves in 
the ether between any desired points, however 
numerous they may be or wherever they may be 
situated. By means of these wire guides, millions 
upon millions of messages may be carried simul- 
taneously without interference with each other. 


“Tt has often been said that had the course of 
scientific development been reversed so that radio 
transmission preceded transmission by wire, the 
discovery that wires can be used to guide the 
ether waves would be considered one of the mar- 
vels of science. By their use, the otherwise un- 
controlled ether waves are caused to follow any 
predetermined pathway, flashing hundreds of 
thousands of messages to and fro under our city 
streets without the slightest interference, each 
message following its allotted course, whether up 
through the intricate structure of a thirty-story 
office building, or out across the plains, under 
rivers and over mountains, even to the far side 
of the continent, there to be received by him, and 
him alone, for whom it is intended. 

“The natural characteristics of radio and wire 
transmission are, therefore, fundamentally differ- 
ent. Each, due to its unique capabilities, is per- 
forming a service for which the other is unsuited, 
and each is supplementing the other to the end 
that there may be provided all the facilities neces- 
sary to extend throughout the world a compre- 
hensive system of electrical communications. For 
the large amounts of traffic on land, both tele- 
graph and telephone, which must be handled with 
certainty and a minimum of cost, the use of 
wires is necessary. But as an agency for com- 
municating over wide stretches of water, with 
moving conveyances generally, for numerous 
maritime and military purposes, and for the 
broadcasting of information, and in other situa- 
tions where wires are not available, radio tele- 
phony is capable of rendering services of unique 
importance.” 


What Good: Communication Means: 


What good electrical communication means 
to the nation is best illustrated by several his- 
toric events of days before the telephone existed. 

On Jan. 8, 1815, the battle of New Orleans was 
fought. The nation was at peace—the treaty had 
been signed—but our troops did not know it. 
Peace had been made two weeks before, on Dec. 
24, 1814, but General Jackson did not get word 
until some time after the engagement and heavy 
loss of life had taken place. 

On Feb. 24, 1836, Col. William B. Travis, with 
185 of his men, was besieged in the Alamo at San 
Antonio, Texas, by a Mexican force of 1,000 under 


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The Transatlantic Telephone Service 


A call for England reaching the transatlantic switch- 
board in New York goes by land wire seventy-five 
miles to Rocky Point, L. I., where powerful amplifiers 
in the radio sending station add a billion units of 
strength to the electric waves and send it across the 
3,350 miles to Cupar, Scotland, where it is picked up, 
further amplified and sent over the land wires to its 
destination. The returning voice comes back by the 
same method, but on a different route, from the sending 
station of the British Post Office at Rugby to the re- 
ceiving station at Houlton, Maine, and from there by 
land line to its destination. This transmission both ways 


Santa Ana. A volunteer on horseback carried to 
the nearest post a call for help. On April 6, the 
Alamo fell, its gallant defenders dying fighting. 
Had they been able to obtain quick communica- 
tion with the outside world they would have been 
saved. 

The historic address of Abraham Lincoln on 
March 4, 1861, was carried at record-breaking 
speed—7 days and 14 hours—by pony express 
from St. Joseph, Mo., to Sacramento, Cal., a dis- 
tance of 1,400 miles, which today can be “on the 
wire” in a few seconds. 

On June 19, 1812, President James Madison is- 
sued a proclamation of war with Great Britain. 
The only means of communication with the coun- 
try was by stage coach and post-rider, it taking 
several weeks to send the message from Washing- 
ton to the distant parts of the country. Contrast- 
ing this with the present day unity of interest of 
the nation, the historian, McMaster, wrote: “No 
one who understands the history of these inter- 
esting times can fail to be struck by the utter 
lack of anything approaching national feeling. 
Slowly but surely the sections were developing 


10 


is on a wave length of 5,000 meters, which experiments 
indicated would afford the greatest reliability of service. 

At the time commercial service was inaugurated, di- 
rected short wave (sometimes called “beam’’) transmis- 
sion using experimental apparatus was provided from 
Deal Beach, New Jersey. This gave an alternative 
channel for use when interference was present on long 
but not on short waves. Permanent short wave equip- 
ment to supplement the regular long wave apparatus is 
being engineered. 

(Since the above map was prepared the new British 
receiving station has been built at Cupar, Scotland.) 


local interests and drawing farther and farther 
apart.” With telephone communication, how- 
ever, came possible unity of thought and action. 


Crossing the Ocean: 


Before the advent of the three-electrode 
vacuum tube, attempts to communicate by radio 
telephony were discouraging. In 1912 telephone 
engineers began development of the tube as a 
long distance wire telephone amplifier or re- 
peater. So satisfactory were the results that 
work was immediately begun on much larger 
tubes, to be applied to radio telephony. 

The first successful demonstration of radio 
telephony, employing vacuum tubes, took place in 
1915 when telephone engineers talked from Mon- 
tauk Point, Long Island, to Wilmington, Dela- 
ware, a distance of 250 miles. Later in the year, 
speech was carried by electric waves from the 
Arlington station, near Washington, D. C., across 
the Atlantic ocean to the Eiffel Tower, Paris, and 
also across the American continent and the Pa- 
cific ocean to Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, 


During ship-to-shore radio experiments in 
1920, the two-way telephonic communication was 
maintained for several months between several 
cities and two ships, the messages going by wire 
between these cities and a telephone company’s 
experimental radio station at Deal Beach, N. J., 
and thence to the ships by radio. 

The telephone engineers’ experiments in trans- 
oceanic radio telephony resulted, in January, 
1923, in successful transmission of speech for 
hours at a time and day after day. On January 
14, 1923, the telephone officials talked continu- 
ously for two hours by wire and radio from their 
offices in New York to a group of scientists and 
engineers assembled in London for the test. On 
March 7, 1926, for the first time in the history 
of communications, groups of people both in 
America and England conversed by wire and 
radio during a test of two-way transatlantic 
telephony. 

Commercial telephone service between America 
and England became a reality on January 7, 1927. 
At first calls were completed only between New 
York and London. By February 26 the service 
was open to all the United States and all of Eng- 
land, Scotland and Wales. Now it is possible to 
talk to any one of about 1,500,000 telephones in 
this territory abroad from any one of the more 
than 18,000,000 telephones in this country. The 
service is available 10%4 hours daily from early 
morning until late in the afternoon in this 
country. 

For the telephone user, this means of communi- 
cation is as simple as it is remarkable. He merely 
picks up the receiver at his home or office tele- 
phone, asks for “Long Distance” and places his 
call as he would for a city in this country. 


Long Distance: 


- There are now more than 18,000,000 telephones 
in the United States, and any one of these may 
be connected with any other. These millions of 
telephones are located in 70,000 cities, villages 
and hamlets, including practically every inhab- 
ited place in the country. Also from any one of 
these it is possible to talk to places in Canada, 
Mexico, and in Cuba, the latter connected by sub- 
marine cable. 


This national and international system of ver- 
bal communication was not brought about by a 
single stroke. It is the cumulative effect of im- 
provements and inventions in telephone appara- 
tus and equipment. It began with a two-mile 
conversation from Boston to Cambridge in 1876. 

A 45-mile line from Boston to Providence was 
used in 1880 and was opened to the public two 
years later. Then followed the New York-Bos- 
ton line, 235 miles, in 1884; the New York-Chi- 
cago line, 900 miles, in 1892; the New York- 
Denver line, 2,100 miles, in 1911; the New York- 
San Francisco line, 3,400 miles, in 1915. 

In 1920 regular commercial radio telephone ser- 


11 


vice was established between Santa Catalina 
Island, about thirty miles out in the Pacific 
Ocean, and the mainland near Los Angeles, Cal., 
at the latter point making junction with the local . 
and long distance wires throughout the country. 
Since that time a submarine cable has been laid 
between the island and the California coast, the 
use of wires having been proved more practical. 

In 1921 the Key West-Havana submarine tele- 
phone cable was put into use. 


In 1927 commercial service between the United 
States and Great Britain was opened. 


Emergency Equipment: 


So commonly used is the telephone that it has 
come to be taken for granted. Imagine the ser- 
vice of the telephone cut off. Many of the every- 
day activities would be paralyzed. Every other 
means of communication would be overburdened 
and business would almost cease. 


The regular equipment could not prevent such 
a happening, for, if it failed, service would have 
to be suspended until the damaged equipment was 
replaced. For this reason, emergency equip- 
ment must be installed or stored close to all vul- 
nerable points. 

In the central office is found emergency equip- 
ment of all types: gas lights to replace the elec- 
tric lamps so the operators may carry on their 
work if the electricity fails; gasoline engine-driv- 
en generators to furnish emergency current; 
machines to replace the regular telephone bell 
ringing apparatus. Complete generating plants 
are mounted on motor trucks and on movable 
platforms and may be rushed to exchanges where 
the lower floors of the central office are under 
water or where both regular and emergency 
equipment is damaged. The most modern fire- 
fighting equipment is installed and fire prevention 
rules are rigidly enforced. 


Emergency equipment for the outside plant is 
stored at points which faciliate its quick removal 
and installation. 

Even when a new office is built and put into 
use, service is not interrupted. Conversations 
started through the old are often finished through 
the new, the users unconscious of the change. 


Mathematics of Increasing Service: 


Take a sheet of paper and make five dots on 
it. Draw lines connecting each dot with every 
other dot. There will be ten lines. 

Now put one more dot on the paper. Connect 
it with each of the other dots. Then there will 
be fifteen lines. In this case one more dot means 
five more lines. If you add and connect still an- 
other dot, that will mean six more lines. An 
eighth dot adds seven lines. A ninth dot adds 
eight lines. And so on. 

In the diagram the heavy lines connect three 
segregated pairs of telephones which, of course, 


permit only three talkways. When they are con- 
nected through a modern switchboard the talk- 
ways are increased to fifteen. It will be seen that 


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as an exchange grows, the construction, mainten- 
ance and operating costs must increase. 

If you had 9,999 dots and added another, that 
10,000th dot would mean adding 9,999 lines if it 
were to be connected with every other dot. The 
number of different connections possible among 
these 10,000 dots reaches the stupendous total of 
49,995,000. 

That’s how telephone systems grow, and as an 
exchange grows the service becomes more valu- 
able to each subscriber as the number of persons 
he can reach increases. Every time a telephone 
is added to the system it must be made possible 
to connect it with every other telephone. Of 
course, these connections are made through cen- 
tral office switchboards. But an inexorable ma- 
thematical law causes the number of possible 
connections to increase by leaps and bounds as 
the system grows. The bigger the system, the 
more complex it becomes. That is expensive for 
the telephone companies, but it is unavoidable. 





How to Use the Telephone 


When making a call— 


1. Always look in the directory for the correct ) 
number. 


2. Talk slowly and carefully, speaking direct- 
ly into the transmitter, with your lips about 
one-half inch from the mouth-piece. 


3. Remain at the telephone until your party 
answers, or until the operator reports to 
you. 


4. When your party answers, announce your 
name. 


5. When you have finished your conversation, 
say, “Goodbye,” or “Thank you.” 


6. To make long distance or out-of-town calls 
ask the operator for “Long Distance.” 


When receiving a call— 

1. Answer your telephone promptly and pleas- 
antly. 

2. Don’t say, “Hello.” When you have taken 
the receiver off the hook state your name. 

3. If the person wanted is not in, take the 
name and number of the party calling. 
Have paper and pencil handy to the tele- 
phone. 

4. Give the person calling your uninterrupted 
attention. 

5. Beas courteous “voice to voice” as you 
would be “face to face.” 


To recall the operator (when using the manual 
telephone), move the hook up and down 
SLOWLY. If you move it rapidly the operator 
does not see your signal. 


How to Use This Bulletin 


Suggested topics for theme writing or discussion 
by oral English, rhetoric, and current topics 
classes: 

A visit to the local telephone plant. 

To what class of users is the telephone 
most valuable? 

Methods of communication by the ancients. 
How the telephone came into existence. 
The home without the telephone. 

The story a telephone told. 


OSE Ca tO 


12 


7. A four-minute review of this bulletin. 
8. What would this community be without 
the public utilities? | 


For Debate: 


Resolved: That Alexander Graham Bell Was 
a Greater Benefactor to the Human Race Than 
Was Any Other Inventor. 

Resolved: That the Telephone is the Greatest 
of Modern-Day Conveniences. 


